- Welcome Hill and Ponton Social Security Disability Blog.
I'm Natalia Jofre,
I'm the Social Security Section Director
here at our law firm.
- My name's Shelly Campbell,
I am the Senior Social Security Attorney here.
- In a couple of our previous blogs,
we've talked about the sequential evaluation process,
basically the rules Social Security is looking at,
which steps they need to look at your case
in order to determine wether you're disabled or not
and we're breaking those down.
So today, we're gonna talk about severity.
- Right. The second step in the process used
by Social Security is to determine whether the condition
you're suffering from is severe.
By severe, Social Security means that the condition
affects your ability to work and that
it prevents you from working on a full time basis.
- So, obviously it's almost subject to
it's almost a subjective finding,
what did you find.
Because sometimes doctors says
your condition is severe enough you should be found disabled
and then the person is denied.
That's often times where we come in because
clients contact us and they say
I feel like my condition keeps me from working,
my doctor feels like my condition keeps me from working,
but yet Social Security is denying me because
they're saying that it's not severe enough.
It's one of the main reasons people get denied,
wouldn't you say?
- I would say so.
There are a number of conditions that are
definitely not severe enough to qualify a person
for disability, such as a broken toe or something like that.
If those are found to be nonsevere, that's understandable.
But like you said, in a lot of cases,
peoples conditions are found to be nonsevere
and they're denied, although the medical records
and the doctors opinions say that the individual
is disabled and unable to work.
That is where we step in and help them file an appeal.
- I think that one of the biggest disconnects
that we find when dealing with Social Security
and with claimants is that people are often times
very incensed or very frustrated or upset
because once Social Security says your condition
isn't severe enough, you don't qualify for benefits,
they give up, they almost feel offended by this binding.
I can tell you, I know that several years ago
we had a client, he was a quadriplegic.
He was literally wheelchair bound.
He was denied, not once, but twice,
and we did have to go to a hearing in order
for him to be found disabled.
Social Security saying your condition is not severe
enough for you to qualify for benefits
should not be accepted as fact just because
they issue that decision.
Those decisions can be appealed,
and that's often actually what we do.
A lot of people that are denied at the
initial and reconsideration level
can eventually be approved at the hearing.
- Absolutely. Most cases are approved at the
hearing level where we can be before
a judge and explain to the judge why those
conditions are severe.
- And when it comes to severity,
there's different things that Social Security looks at.
They have a list called Listings with special rules.
If you meet those, you can automatically qualify.
They also have what are called Compassionate Allowances.
A lot of forms of cancer fall under that.
Scope of cases, if you have these conditions,
these symptoms, you can automatically qualify.
All of that has to be evaluated by someone
that knows that they're doing,
and unfortunately Social Security doesn't always find
people that are disabled under those rules,
even if they should.
- Right. That's exactly right.
So if there's ever a question as to whether or not
your disability is sever under Social Security rules,
and they have concluded that they are nonsevere,
you definitely want to seek assistance with your claim.
- So if you have any questions regarding a
disability claim or any of the things that
we discussed, feel free to call our office
or visit our website, hillandponton.com.
Otherwise, look for future blogs on these
different steps and how a disability claim
can be processed and approved.
For now, thanks for watching and we'll see ya next time.
(calm music)